Kieron Pollard Likely To Take Up Limited-Overs Captaincy Roles For Windies
Sep 9, 2019 at 12:03 PM
The Cricket West Indies (CWI) is likely to come up with a surprising decision on the limited-overs captaincy in the men’s national squad. According to the Guardian Sports, Kieron Pollard is likely to replace Jason Holder and Carlos Brathwaite as the ODI and T20I captain of Windies respectively.
According to that report, the CWI Board of Directors has taken this decision on Saturday (7th September), opening day of the two-day quarterly meeting at the Hilton Trinidad Hotel in Port-of-Spain.
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The CWI directors aren’t happy with the recent limited-overs performances. In the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, Windies finished in the ninth position (five points) after winning only two matches.
After that tournament, Windies lost the three-match T20I series (in the USA and West Indies) and three-match home ODI series by the 3-0 and 2-0 margins respectively. Later, in the same Caribbean tour, India also won the two-match Test series by 2-0.
However, the CWI directors are considering changing only the limited-overs captaincies. In recent time, Jason Holder-led Windies team has improved in the Test cricket.
Jason Holder has served as a Windies captain from January 2015 during the South Africa tour. Under his captaincy, Windies have played two ICC Cricket World Cups (2015 and 2019). While he led the Caribbean side in 86 ODIs, Windies managed to win 24 matches, lose 54 games, tie two matches and also had six no results.
Meanwhile, Carlos Brathwaite has led the side in 30 T20Is from August 2016 where Windies won 11 matches, lost 17 games and the other two matches had no results. However, last March, during England tour in West Indies, Jason Holder led the Windies side in all the three T20Is.
Kieron Pollard is an experienced Caribbean player but currently, he is not a regular member
The 32-year-old Kieron Pollard has played 101 ODIs and 62 T20Is where he has scored 2,289 runs (average 25.71) & 903 runs (average 21.50) respectively and also has taken 50 & 23 wickets respectively.
Pollard didn’t play an ODI since the Abu Dhabi ODI against Pakistan on 5th October 2016. He was in the reserve players’ squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. But he didn’t earn the national team call up at that time.
Recently, Pollard returned to the T20I squad during the latest T20I series against India. Before that T20I series, his previous T20I match was also against India at Chennai on 11th November 2018.
In the latest T20I series against India, Pollard finished as the leading run-scorer. He scored 115 runs in three innings of that series with an average of 57.50. In that three-match T20I series, he scored 49, 8* and 58 runs respectively.
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Pollard has also led the Windies team in two ODIs, both during the home tri-series against India and Sri Lanka. Under his leadership, Windies have won one game and lost the other game.